Salman Rushdie: The One Thing You Can't Teach about Writing (Sept. 16, 2015) | Charlie Rose

"Every exceptional writer has some very personal relationship with the English language." Salman Rushdie talks to Charlie Rose about what can -- and can't -- be taught about writing. His latest novel, "Two Years, Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights" is out now. The full interview airs Sept. 16, 2015 on PBS. Visit www.charlierose.com for more.

[@ramdularsingh1435]

Salman Rushdie all the way deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature. So the Nobel Committee must not delay any longer in awarding this creative genius for his contribution to the Literature the world enjoys today. It's urgent now.

[@ThePsychic24]

i think you need to relax lol. you're basing your opinion on the man and not the work he produced. it's understandable but it's not what the nobel prize is about.

[@whats_in_a_name876]

​@@ThePsychic24 I'm researching on his work 'Imaginary Homelands' and have read Midnight's Children, Shalimar and Grimus multiple times. Based on that, Does he deserve the Nobel Prize? Undoubtedly! Is Nobel the only thing that would secure his legacy? Not at all. The likes of Mr. Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Anita Desai etc is synonymous to Indian Literature and will be remembered for a very long time.

[@AtlasTheStoryteller]

When he said that as he sits down to write, "his mind works in a way that it doesn't otherwise work", that spoke to me deeply. I am a terrible orator. I have a problem verbalizing my thoughts in a manner that sounds both intelligent and cohesive. But when I write, it's as if I'm being occupied by a different person, or perhaps a version of myself that can finally be free. I certainly do not speak the same as I write. That difference though I think is what Rushdie is alluding to.

[@yuliang816]

I agree. There are things that cannot be taught about great writers.

[@brotheraugustine]

Rose should let his guests speak instead of interrupting.

[@onechew]

I really thought the same haha

[@onechew]

@JohnnyMavers He asked good questions but bad timing. He kept cutting in when Salman Rushdie was talking. He could've waited to ask those questions until Salman Rushdie finished what he wanted to talk.

[@artieash6671]

your advice is a day late and a dollar short... he has been gone for years ...since "me too" dispensed with him

[@Cleveland_Chris]

I cannot stand when the interviewer believes themselves the main character

[@ImHaydenHudson]

This is what made Pratchett particularly special. Not the worlds greatest writer, but you could pick his characters from a single line of dialogue. R.I.P.

[@BookClubDisaster]

Most interesting is the part about his mind working differently when he writes. I notice the same. I've often felt I have zero to say but then I start writing and think, "Oh, where did that come from?".

[@anuranbhattacharya9938]

The trouble these days that what can be taught is abundant and what can't be taught is lacking too much.

[@RohitPant04]

Very well put up. The articulation that's reflected in the writer's work is not always reflected in their speech. It's because of the different neuro circuitry involved in the two processes but it is something!

[@sandbagger1912]

Good point about how dialogue on the page and what comes out the author's mouth in everyday life is likely different. But the author, a good author, has a good ear.

[@prasantbanerjee8199]

It is always a pleasure to listen to Salman Rushdie and to Charlie Rose - gentlemen both.

[@yvonneshanson1525]

"both", right...

[@BookClubDisaster]

Aaha! 1 out of 2 anyway. Just waking up from a 5 year coma?

[@ashleygatewood]

"Relationship with the language"....or 'voice'. He is right about that.

[@michaelmelling9333]

Many years ago, I picked up one of his books and began thumbing through it and I began to feel sick right away because I saw that his writing was a million times better than mine could ever be.😟☹😥😫😫😫😫

[@FourTwentyIVXX]

"so you want to be a writer?"

[@sarojkumarsahoo2905]

Time to give him Noble Prize

[@vinm300]

2:11 is he talkative or is he a close-mouthed man. "No, I like to talk". "Better and better, I'll tell you straight out sir, that I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk. Now what will we talk about ?" "Shall we talk about the black bird ?" "By gad sir, you're the man for me".

[@r.s.9861]

Legend!

[@shahilagh]

Why Charlie interrupts him? I get anxiety when ppl interrupt me

[@MrK.A]

He's the worst interviewer I've come across. Interrupts and puts words in the guest's mouth.

[@jorgeh71]

Hope my students find this video as interesting as I do.

[@jessicadiaz2503]

Same! I'm also gonna use it in class. :)

[@arc7818]

I barely got to understand what the title of the video meant because Charlie kept interrupting the speaker right as he was getting to the point.

[@douglasdickerson5184]

💙💙💙

[@johnsylvester951]

I think you need to read James Joyce again .

[@thebestofmosdef]

Do you think he really liked the Sean Penn novel, or did he do the blurb as a favor?

[@Beatz_by_Tp_the_don]

bro looks like Stanley Kubrick

[@ellie-tk4jy]

Lol I think I'm the only person who finds Charlie arose amusing. I keep acidentally typing "arose" perhaps a Freudian slip. My favourite thing about Charlie Disrobe is that he interrupts a comment and looks as if he is thinking something extremely profound then says something so banal you wonder why he spoke.

[@MarkDRoche-fk8sw]

Less than a two and a half minute interview and Rose interrupted Rushdie at least three times in ways that kept us from finding out what Rushdie was saying. Horrible interviewing that was clearly not respecting, nor even listening all that much, to what Rushdie was saying.

[@salmanhyder1655]

Wow ❤️

[@paulwarren3106]

Why doesn't the interviewer let him speak?

[@ellie-tk4jy]

Because it's Charlie Rose. Or Charlie DisRobe as I like to call him. Salman is lucky he didn't get flashed at.

[@ladybird491]

I am an exceptional writer and he is actually right. I don't write the way I talk to people either and my body is not in the present time at all, I am very much up in the sky, enlightenment. I never do heavy editing or fight with work to become great. I also have an obsession to understand life, people and all around me, I can stare and listen to things all day.

[@mikehiebert6227]

Anyone who proclaims they are great at something has not garnered the modesty and humbleness that suffering on the road to success provides. Not even Cormac McCarthy called himself an "exceptional writer".

[@thebrushpainter]

@@mikehiebert6227 I think she meant "exceptional" as in "not typical"-- (not a native speaker). On the other hand, I AM an exceptional writer, I stare and think all day, and when I'm being exceptional I write and write away! Oh I'm an exceptional writer, and I live up in the sky, and when I'm no longer exceptional, I'll lay down and... eat some McDonalds!

[@ellie-tk4jy]

You sound insufferable. Please don't talk about yourself like that again.

[@____uncompetative]

"Go to work on an egg." - Salman Rushdie

[@Ma_Ba]

Is dialogue more in the realm of the theater?

[@Nautilus1972]

I believe so. Rushdie is talking bollocks here. A good writer does not necessarily write good dialogue, far from it usually. A playwright MUST.

[@gondwanaman9362]

Wow

[@maliceburgoyne495]

Thank god Charlie Rose has been removed. The guy talks over his guests and interjects himself, his ego so often that most of his spots were unwatchable.

[@SeanPFarley]

You took the words out of my mouth. Always interrupting. It's infuriating.

[@EmlynBoyle]

Agreed. He kept interrupting SR and wouldn't let him finish a sentence.

[@brianwinters9995]

Yes, thank God he's been removed and we can now have pointless sycophantic talk shows that do nothing but oink about things they don't know instead of a program that talks to intelligent writers about the writing process.

[@peleniseh]

@@brianwinters9995 Wow, I ran out of breath reading that sentence. We are, after all, commenting on a video about “writing”, are we not?

[@yvonneshanson1525]

@Brian Winters if u think that the scope & flow of "his" show was due to his "intellect" & not to his bullied, harassed assistants & subordinates u must be really intellect challenged!..

[@solusrex4034]

I disagree. I think there's a close relationship in how a writer speaks and writes especially with regards to the rhythm and cadence. Writing is a much more polished and highly calibrated version of the writer's syntax and diction, however.

[@ogkushbreath8607]

Disagree all you want but youre wrong! Just listen to other writers being interviewed. Atwood, King, Sanderson. They talk NOTHING like anyone in their book. Ever

[@solusrex4034]

@@ogkushbreath8607 In case you think all prominent writers think alike, here's a passage from "Despair" by Nabokov. 'As often happens with uneducated people, the tone of his letter was in complete disagreement with that of his usual conversation: his epistolary voice was a tremulous falsetto with lapses of eloquent huskiness whereas in real life he had a self-satisfied baritone sinking into a didactic bass.'

[@ogkushbreath8607]

@@solusrex4034 Not necessarily helpful using adjectives generally reserved for sound to represent prose, or the non-verbal thought or moral tendency, but I see what he meant in the passage.

[@lela_lela_]

Charlie Rose should NOT interfere too much. I listen to Salman, not the interviewer. Don't show off man!

[@lokerkita9059]

What kind of "relationship" is that?

[@NickDiasOuttaMyLeague]

This is the one hiccup I have with guys like Aaron Sorkin and Quinten Tarantino. I LOVE their work… but all their characters tend to sound the same.

[@KhetaniMichael]

Rose is soo pretentious!😂